C a r o l y n D a u g h t e r s

Why aren’t you taking my advice?

Don’t be all, um, you never offered me any advice and anyway I don’t need any right now and if for some reason I did need advice why would I turn to you? That’s just silly. You see that, right?

So I’ll ask you again: Why aren’t you taking my advice? I’m chock full of useful information.
Carolyn: Cheryl Strayed, you’re super busy these days, what with your book tours for Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things and your pool parties with Oprah and your backlog of unanswered … Continue Reading

A bunch of us had drinks on the front porch of Lighthouse Writers Workshop last night. The “bunch” included Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild (Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection). Here’s my Cliff Notes recollection of the gathering. For purposes of disclosure, I should note that the story will be told with something in the neighborhood of 14% accuracy (a personal best for me).

To begin, the main characters are Cara, Christy, Cheryl, and Carolyn (me). Because four “C” names are hard to remember, I’ve decided to call Cara “Isabel Allende,” Christy “Anne Lamott,” and Carolyn “Eudora Welty.” I’ve also added a … Continue Reading

Writing’s hard. So hard that it makes me want to chuck what I’ve written into the nearest bin and climb under the covers for a well-earned nap. I have too much research, distilling, writing, and rewriting to do. What if I can’t get enough done? Or what if getting enough done isn’t good enough? What if I actually get it all done and no one wants it, buys it, reads it, cares? I have a finite amount of energy. The weight’s too heavy. I can’t carry the load. It’s too much.

Feels good to get that off my chest. Poor, sad, … Continue Reading

Cheryl Strayed - Wild

Cheryl Strayed was interviewed in the March/April edition of Poets & Writers. Couple things to know about Cheryl: (1) She’s the author of the new big-buzz memoir, Wild, and (2) she recently revealed she’s Sugar, advice columnist for the Rumpus.

In Sugar’s most famous column, a 26-year-old wrote, “I write like a girl, I write about my lady life experiences, and it usually comes out as unfiltered emotion, unrequited love, and eventual discussion of my vagina as a metaphor…I am a … Continue Reading